Sunday, November 12

11:00 AM | Eddy Portnoy

Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press

Written with reverence and love for all things Yiddish this is a compendium of stories about the downwardly mobile Jews whose daily disgraces were exposed through Yiddish newspapers during pre-WWII New York and Warsaw - the two major centers of Yiddish culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Author Eddy Portnoy, Senior Researcher and Exhibition Curator at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, offers us a window into an unknown world of strange, eastern European transplants, whose shortcomings became fodder for urban gossip.

$12 Member | $18 Public

2:00 PM | Theatre

The Play’s the Thing

This year the J joins nine other communities across the country to participate in the Jewish Plays Project (JPP), a nationwide organization dedicated to promoting the creation of new plays with Jewish-related content.

The JPP’s main vehicle for achieving this goal is the Jewish Playwriting Contest. The winning play receives a workshop production in New York.

Members of the J’s Theatre Committee will be joined by leading professionals from Houston’s vibrant theatre community in reading and evaluating the 10 top plays submitted for 2018.

Listen in as this esteemed group hosts a public discussion of the plays they are reading. The discussion, facilitated by JPP artistic director David Winitsky, will provide audience members a rare opportunity to hear their perspectives on these stimulating, new plays and also learn more about the state of new Jewish plays in America.

FREE

4:00 PM | Dr. Michael Roizen

Age-Proof: Living Longer Without Running Out of Money or Breaking a Hip

In this book, the authors provide tactics, strategies, and knowhow to achieve stronger, healthier, more lucrative lives. They demonstrate that the same principles we use to better our bodies will allow us to do the same for our financial independence.

Patron Sponsor Leah Stolar

$12 Member | $18 Public

Closing Night7:30 PM | Steve Dorff

I Wrote That One, Too…: A Life in Songwriting from Willie to Whitney

One of the most successful songwriters and composers of the last quarter century, Steve Dorff has penned over 20 Top 10 hits for pop and country artists, including Barbara Streisand, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Ray Charles.

He has scored for television shows, including Growing Pains and Murder, She Wrote, and films, including Any Which Way but Loose. Most recently, he has ventured into musical theater, with two Broadway projects underway.

In his book, I Wrote that One, Too, Dorff chronicles his four decades behind the music – offering anecdotes, advice and insights into his experiences. From his childhood in Queens, to his eventual arrival in LA, he takes us along for the ride, as he follows one dream at a time.